Prussian Heritage - Tracy Spenyovics

January 26, 1990|By LINDA DOYNE Staff Writer

Tracy Spenyovics, a great-great-granddaughter of a Prussian general, is very interested in her family tree. Tracy has been working on her family's genealogy and has also found that her great-grandfather was Prussian Captain Spenyovitz. Spenyovitz apparently did not like war and decided to leave Prussia. He came to the United States to fulfill his dream of becoming a iano-builder. Like many immigrants, Spenyovitz changed his name by dropping the "tz" and adding "ics".

"Right now I'm sort of at a dead end on my research," Tracy says. However, she plans to keep plugging away to learn about her ancestry.

Tracy recently competed against 1,200 other Latin students and tied for second place in a writing contest sponsored by the Virginia Junior Classical League. She wrote a modern version of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus, a musician with magic powers, descends to the underworld and tries to lead his wife, Eurydice, back from the dead. Orpheus is warned not to look back to reassure himself that Eurydice is following him, but fails to heed the warning and when he looks back he finds Eurydice is not there.

In Tracy's updated version the husband is told by hospital doctors that he cannot visit his wife who has been shot by hunters. The wife is in an intensive care unit and the husband is fretful that he may never see his wife alive again. He sneaks into his wife's room and she dies.

Besides being in Yeates' Latin Club, Tracy is a member of Junior Beta Club and enjoys reading and tennis. She hopes to make the school tennis team this year. Her favorite professional tennis player was Chris Everett. Since Everett has retired from tennis, Tracy is closely following Stephi Graff.

Tracy lives in Deerfield with her parents and a sister, Michelle, 18, and a brother, Jodie, 10. "The best thing about having an older sister is that she has a car and can take me places. And the best thing about having a little brother, is that I know someday, he will have to do the dishes all by himself."